NEVER WRONG! NEVER TOO HARD!

By Helen Jesze, 19th June 2015

„But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.“

2 Corinthians 3, 18 (Webster’s Bible Translation)

A woman went with a group of people to see the work of a famous sculptor and artist. As the tour-guide explained the pictures and sculptures, she hung back a little, studying them, captivated by the strength and beauty of the work. Then she heard hammer blows, regular and steady, and realised they were coming from an adjoining room, the door of which, was slightly open.

Moving quietly away from the group, she peeped through the door and there was the craftsman, his back to the door, hammering away at a large block of wood. Splinters and chips of wood flew all around him as he hammered at the material.

The woman slipped into the room and nearer to the man, who was oblivious of her presence. Blow after blow, with never a pause, he was working, crafting a woman’s face. Even though it was unfinished, she could clearly see the features, delicate yet strong.

He looked up and saw her. „What if you make a mistake?! Do you ever hit too hard? Don’t you ever get it wrong?!“ the woman’s eyes searched his face.

„Never!“ he replied. „Never wrong! Never too hard!“

Suddenly, embarassed that she had come in, the woman apologised for disturbing him at his work and slipped out of the workshop door. She expected to hear the hammer blows start again, but all was quiet, so the woman turned and looked through the door-slit again. But now the man was down on his knees, praying in front of his last finished piece of work – a lifesize figure of Christ.

„He always does that,“ whispered the tour-guide, who had come to stand beside her. „Before he starts a new piece and when it is completed, he prays for God’s help and creativity, and that God would be glorified in all his work!“

The woman joined the group again, yet she could not join in their conversation. Her heart was too full. Before she had come out that morning, surrounded with great difficulties and not knowing how to face the future, she had struggled and wept, trying to see how her circumstances could ever be changed, and questioning why God could ever have allowed such seemingly negative things to happen to her.

But now she realised that if a man could say that he had perfected his craft to such an extent that he never made a mistake, how much more could she trust God – the Master Craftsman – to fashion her life! The blows which she felt He would soften, and she would not be destroyed – He was making her into the image of His Son!

Because she had felt so down, she nearly did not come on the outing. „Just think what I would have missed if I had not come!“ she whispered.

Encouraged and with a new spring in her step, the woman cast her burden on the Lord, stepped out of her isolation and joined the others, her heart comforted and thankful!

Prayer: Heavenly Father, help me not to resist your working in me. Help me not to be so busy gathering up the ‘splinters’ – that unnecessary clutter you are cutting off of my life – that I miss the new thing you are now creating in me!

I lay myself afresh at your feet in worship and submission. Fashion and shape my life today, according to your eternal plan, that I may increasingly be changed into the image of your Son! In His Name, Amen.